The European Plastics Industry debates Marine Litter Solutions
One of the biggest challenges we are facing today is Marine Litter - a complex issue affecting the oceans, seas and rivers, harming nature in Europe and around the world. With the topic “Together we must save our oceans from litter”, PlasticsEurope is pleased to announce the sixth edition of PolyTalk, a two-day conference and exhibition on 26 and 27 March held in St Julian’s (Malta) at the centre of the Mediterranean Sea, to Debate, Act, Change on one of the largest environmental challenges today: plastics in the oceans.
With PolyTalk 2018 – PlasticsEurope’s major stakeholder event - we want to continue establishing and building new partnerships with all actors concerned to prevent marine litter around the world. International organisations, government officials, representatives from national environment ministries, NGOs, the plastics industry as well as the research community will be joining forces to debate and share solutions from around the world to build bridges and new forms of collaboration, with a focus on the Mediterranean region.
PolyTalk was launched in 2010 to identify joint visions and opportunities through an open, constructive and forward-looking dialogue on controversial topics. This year, PolyTalk 2018 will provide a dynamic forum where participants will discuss and identify the path towards a cleaner marine environment, shared strategies for the Mediterranean Sea, identify industry efforts and actions, the role of research & innovations to tackle marine litter, strategies and actions to change citizens’ behaviours as well as the importance of implementing proper waste management systems.
Following the inspiring “wake up call” by Professor Richard Thompson at the 2010 PolyTalk conference, PlasticsEurope became one of the co-founders of the global association coalition for Marine Litter Solutions in 2011, launched during the 5th International Marine Debris Summit. Since then, the plastics industry has been taking action by launching several initiatives locally and globally such as the World Plastic Council.
Now, PlasticsEurope is offering PolyTalk as a platform to identify and understand some of the key elements needed today in order to tackle marine litter. The detailed 2018 conference programme can be found at www.polytalk.eu or www.plasticseurope.org/en.